Cloudy2024 thanks! It's a fun exercise to try and design a deck that revolves around a weird strategy and try to make it as consistent as possible. I'd highly recommend finding a card you think is cool or funny and trying to make a deck out of it! For me, I just happened to find a couple of copies of Scrapyard Salvo when looking through my paper collection and was surprised that it didn't see much pauper play. Ultimately I decided to go out of my comfort zone and make a weird 4 colored deck around it

R.I.P. Deadly Dispute

legendofa Saw this ban today and immediately thought of you lmao. Time to play dimir reanimator control with self mill + High Tide and just hard cast 5 cost reanimation spells

legendofa I didn't know that either! But also you're good about discord don't worry about it <3

legendofa Can I bother you to get your discord so I can add you?

Martyr of Sands is a really fun cleric, one of my favorite cards I've never found a place for. Prismatic Strands is an overwhelmingly powerful card and can be not only a fog but also can blow out your opponent if they try to trade with your creatures. there's do no damage, yours do damage. This is going to help get any extra damage you need through to your opponent without sacrificing your clerics, weakening Vile Deacon, in the process. Snuff Out is another overwhelmingly strong card that is in... most black decks in the meta and with infinite life is literally just a free kill spell and I think you should find a place for it mainboard. I think this deck can be very viable despite having a niche design and that's awesome. If anything, to go up against the strongest of strong pauper decks maybe cut Harsh Sustenance or some copies of Misery Charm for some multipurpose artifact and enchantment spot removal that can also be cast for value. White has a lot of these effects but really this is just a meta deckbuilding decision and just running specific removal sideboard like you're doing already is more than fine.

It breaks theme slightly but Battle Screech and Village Rites could help you with card draw and chump blocking, things your deck seems to really want. You would likely be more than fine cutting 1-2 lands even without card draw since your curve is just so low. But in reality the only recommendation I would say is super important is Prismatic Strands since you need as much protection for your combo and finishers as possible.

Overall though I really really love this deck it's just so well designed in terms of flavor and actual playability and is honestly one of my favorite pauper decks I've ever seen on here

legendofa I'm not good with infinites so it is most DEFINITELY not efficient. It is however funny and worth a try. It's a bad enough combo that it's very interactable and your opponent has many opportunities to stop it. That makes it a lot less miserable to get blown away by an infinite as the opponent and if you're playing casual jank decks should be fine

You can lean hard into Kuldotha Rebirth + Dread Return. I think it's a way more interesting combo than just using Exhume like most reanimator decks. Generally I find pauper reanimator a boring archetype but this could be really cool. Churn through your deck with Faithless Looting, Cathartic Reunion, etc. Play setup cards like Gold Pan to give you an artifact plus more mana and lategame potential equipment. Crashing Drawbridge is a board wide haste enabler, and an artifact if needed. If you want to lean harder into reanimating artifact creatures, Argivian Restoration is a neat reanimator spell. Notably it also ramps you if you target an artifact land which is funny. Cleansing Wildfire can target your indestructible artifact duals to ramp you a basic and draw you a card for 2 mana which is awesome interaction. I would avoid using Exhume if possible because by giving the opponent a blocker, even if you trample through it, it will make you take longer to kill the opponent and give them more time to remove your threats and disable your deck. It also works against your removal by giving them their scariest cards you already spent resources removing back for free.

Overall I would focus on having fewer but stronger reanimator targets and just using Dread Return + Kuldotha Rebirth. Play some madness cards like Dark Withering, Brain Gorgers, Kitchen Imp, Terminal Agony, Hell Mongrel, Reckless Wurm, etc. That way you're playing cheap aggressive threats with your Dark Ritual's and Lotus Petal's while filling your graveyard with your hyper efficient discard. Less worrying about casting as many reanimation spells and more focus on being aggressive while you set up will get you the damage you need early on to deal with blockers and close the game quicker.

So since you asked, here's my stupid idea: Mill yourself. a ton. I know, that doesnt really work with the zubera's but there's more. Once you have 6 or more creatures in your graveyard you can profit. With Archaeomancer, Ardent Elementalist, any mana filterer like Prismite and any sac outlet like Makeshift Munitions in play you can win with the red zubera. Cast Ghostly Flicker and return the flicker + Songs of the Damned to your hand. Cast songs, filter 2 black into a blue, cast flicker, repeat. accrue infinite mana. Cast Exhume or some reanimation spell to return Ember-Fist Zubera to play, sac it, and cast flicker again this time returning the flicker and exhume to hand. Repeat. The zubera don't care how many are in your graveyard, just how many went there this turn. It's like going to an arcade and just pushing a baskteball in and out of the hoop to get a ton of points. This is stupid, and a horrible infinite combo, but its a thing.

These creatures are just horrendously bad. For advice otherwise I can just say play control, maybe some fogs, lots of card draw and ramp. Try to sac your board and maybe do some Songs of the Damned shenanigans to recur one or two but really don't stress about making the strategy good. It's jank, and is quite funny, and holds a special place on the more casual wincons of decks

legendofa for sure!

I love Into the North, made a similar domain deck with Into the North, Nylea's Presence, and Lush Growth but it's a lot slower of a build and I'm not super into it

Nicklaffy2302 Here's my initial version of the deck!

Nicklaffy2302 It happens to the best of us! Rubblebelt Maverick is a very good card and will get you results for sure. The card selection it provides is great setup for the early game, I just find it to be a somewhat dead draw over something more controlling or aggressive outside of your opening hand for this deck. But yeah test out the deck and see what you enjoy!

I still love this deck because of how aggressive it is and how it uses your own life total and lands to fuel a super aggro/lockdown strategy. It's really cool and is something that you could really only see in pauper

I personally love Mantle of Tides for blue control finishers especially because it can be equipped/moved between your creatures at instant speed with the best card draw in the format. Faerie Duelist is one of my favorite fairies from Return to Ravnica draft and would be really good with Spellstutter Sprite. It's also just more instant speed game action for a tempo/draw go style deck

I may be stupid, but how are you casting snuff out?

In terms of suggestions you could probably go 20 or 21 lands in a deck where lands matter so much. I don't think Rubblebelt Maverick is actually helping that much to run 4 of it. I think what would be funnier is jam 4 Raze and run 2 or 3 Skyshroud Ranger or something of the same effect. Maybe make a small engine with Groundskeeper to return lands and then put them directly into play from your hand.

Another direction you can take it is just have one REALLY GOOD land and sacrifice the rest. Enchant a land with Wild Growth and Utopia Sprawl and just focus on keeping one or two enchanted lands around and keeping your opponent down to one or two mana while you have 3, 4, or even 5. Stone Rain is also an iconic card. This deck seems to really want to play black. Bone Shards can help you bin an early land to play a turn 2 wurm. Village Rites is excellent card draw and can keep your hand full of lands for afforementioned Skyshroud Ranger type effects. Black loves to sacrifice for cheap and while Improvised Club is a great use for Akki Blizzard-Herder more sacrifice outlets would be more consistent.

I don't really like Werebear in this deck because I think it will just take too long for it to become a 4/4 and it isn't an effective beater if you have to end up using it for mana to cast anything. Maybe consider Bayou Groff or Burning-Tree Emissary. This deck looks kinda funny and it makes me want to make my own version